Tuesday, October 03, 2006

THE LEFT AT CROSS-PURPOSES WITH ITSELF

Now, of course, it is politically expedient to cast suspicion and doubt upon a gay man communicating with a 16 year old boy, and the Dems love what is politically expedient. Which causes even this center-left journalist to call them a party without principles.

Don’t get me wrong. Foley is a creep and good riddance, and I wish he’d take Denny Hastert with him…but my, there’s a Dem player throwing gay men under the bus in order to make political points. Well, why not? They know they can count on the gay vote…no risk there, right? Gagdad Bob writes about homophobes on the left.

And, as Siggy so painstakingly documents, "the culture of corruption is as much an issue for Democrats as it is for Republicans"

It is interesting to read the hysteria coming out of the left regarding the situation with Congressman Foley, who I wholeheartedly agree is a pervert. Furthermore, it is fascinating to hear the left using this normally shunned word so freely and openly. Normally, the left specializes in defining deviancy down, so they are definitely at cross purposes with themselves in this matter.

In fact, someone left a shrewd comment about Foley on La Shawn Barber’s blog, that “Twenty years from now, he will be able to marry a 16 year old boy.” Seriously, who could argue with this comment? Is this not the trend that the left has been working toward over the last 40 years? Twenty years from now this might be an epic story of forbidden love overcoming the hidebound, benighted, and unprogressive attitudes of sexual oppressors.

But there is a much deeper reason the left is at cross purposes with itself. They keep stridently referring to Foley as a “pervert.” While I certainly agree that he is a pervert, I am quite sure I don’t understand why they do. Is it because he is attracted to young men? If that is the case, why is he a pervert, when all normal heterosexual men are just as attracted to young female flesh? Can I get a witness? I'm hardly excusing it. "Is" is not synonymous with "ought." In fact, this is why society must have "oughts" in place that acknowledge the problematic nature of male sexuality. (emphasis mine)

And, with his usual acumen, Bob has honed in on the essence of the problem we are dealing with here. The left is at cross purposes with itself.

The Anchoress sees it clearly. Siggy documents it. Bob confronts it in his post. I am going to discuss why it is so; because, like a broken record, I keep coming back to this fundamental issue that must be dealt with if Western Civilization is to prevail over the barbarians at the gate. The questions are: Why has the political left abandoned all pretense of the liberal tradition? Why is it that they say one thing and do the opposite? Why have they been able to delude themselves into thinking that they are "reality-based" and that they stand for "family values"? Why have they struggled so fiercely and angrily to impede and undermine this country's ability to fight Islamofascism, while at the same time enabling the terrorists and their plotting?

There is one answer to all those questions. Postmodernism.

Reality, truth, reason, consistency, integrity and almost all the values of the Enlightenment that I discussed in the previous post have been abandoned--cheaply surrendered--by the intellectual elites of Western Civilization. (also discussed here , here and here for the interested)

Europe boldly produces films about assassinating an American president, and routinely disparages the Church that gave the world the Sermon of the Mount, but it simply won’t stand up for an artist, a well-meaning Pope, or a ranting filmmaker when the mob closes in. The Europe that believes in everything turns out to believe in nothing.

The political left believes in nothing. In fact, they have finally reached the natural endpoint of their postmodern intellectual journey and arrived at the core nihilism that animates their belief system.

Once we have rejected reason and set aside reality as a basis for our actions, we are left with our feelings and the postmodern emotional universe. Is it any wonder that the same people who aggressively champion gay rights one minute, will--when it is expedient--"throw gay men under the bus to score political points"? Why should we expect them to behave reasonably? Reason plays no part in their ideology or thought, such as it is. Forgetting about the many Democrats who behaved as perversely as Foley (and excellently documented by SC&A) is not simply a benign lapse on the part of the left; it is a perfectly acceptable tactic in a conflict where the only goal is power at any price. Truth be damned.

Consider for a moment by what slender margins, as Wretchard puts it in discussing the Foley case, civilization survives from one day to the next?

Hanson replies confidently:

Those in an auto parts store in Fresno, or at a NASCAR race in southern Ohio, might appear to Europeans as primordials with their guns, “fundamentalist” religion, and flag-waving chauvinism. But it is they, and increasingly their kind alone, who prove the bulwarks of the West. Ultimately what keeps even the pope safe and the continent confident in its vain dialogues with Iranian lunatics is the United States military and the very un-Europeans who fight in it.

How long, though, can these courageous bulwarks of the West last against the twin enemies of civilization--those anti-reality, anti-reason, and anti-truth fanatics of postmodern leftist jihadism on the one front; and the violent, anti-reality, anti-reason, anti-truth Islamic jihadists on the other?

One by one, the slender threads that hold civilization together are being severed, either by the rhetoric of the fanatic left or the sword of the Islamic religious terrorist.

If you think there is no connection between the left's hysterical, self-righteous and calculatingly shrewd reaction toward Foley; and the reason why the values of Western Civilization and the legacy of the Enlightment are falling easily under the onslaught of a religion of barbarism and tyranny--then you would be very wrong.

There is a connection. The left is at cross purposes with itself because they foolishly believe they stand for something when when they actually stand for nothing.

Postmodernism is nihilism dressed up in academic robes; but the rejection of reason, reality and truth doesn't have to be dressed up; and in fact, with the violence and brutality exhibited by the Islamic terrorists, we see the essentials of postmodernism in all its nakedness.